I think the one my wife got me is 16" square, so it should fit my tallest and widest figures easily enough.

 

This thread was an excellent idea, OP!   I've always wanted to take higher quality TF photos, and didn't wanted to be constantly bugging the peeps with questions in the "Cool Stuff" thread who kick ass on a regular basis.

Anyone know how to get rid of the yellowness that often shows up in my photos? I'm just shooting with a regular point-and-shoot, no special lighting or anything.

 

See if there's a white balance setting on your camera. Make sure to set it to whatever lighting you're using. Tungsten for normal household lights. Fluorescent for fluorescent. Daylight for natural day light. Other than that, you can usually take care of it in post processing with photoshop.
-G

 

I wouldn't call it fancy but it is for photo. 12 bux for it from BHphotovideo.com A speedlight will open up so much for you photowise. That and some ebay triggers or radiopoppers and you're set.

 

Yeah, white balance is one of the important steps that often gets overlooked. Everyone mentions lightning, macro modes, and tripods, but white balance is the key to actually making your pictures look like they're in normal colored rooms.

 

What is a speedlight? What are ebay triggers and radiopoppers?

 

a speedlight is a hotshoe flash like a canon 540ez for example or 580ex. Radio poppers are little radio recievers and transmitters that let you fire the flash with it not attached to your camera. so you can have more creative and natural lighting instead of it coming from head on. Ebay triggers are just cheap ones from china usually yongnuo branded. they work fairly well but it's really hit or miss. Great way to get started would be ebay triggers, a cheap used speedlight from ebay keh.com.

 

True macros are overrated when it comes to toy photography. What you really want is to get some serious distance between you and the toy you are shooting. It makes it easier to work with your depth of field and clear up the entire toy or just sections of it depending on how you want to shoot. True macros mean you're pretty much stuck shooting for one small section of the toy to be in focus while the rest of it is outside your dof and left blurred.

The most important thing to do is learn your camera. Stick it in manual and adjust settings to see what differences it makes. You'll be shocked how sitting in one position, subtly adjusting aperature and shutter speed can change absolutely everything about a picture.

I also recommend either using time delay, or getting a remote trigger and a tripod. Remove camera shake when shooting small objects or no amount of focus will be good enough. I'm sure I'll have more to add later.

 

Me too. Half of the time I'm too lazy to get my camera because it's in the other room so I just snap away with my Blackberry's shitty little camera.

 

Been rather concerned if those lamps do not damage the toys in any way.

 

My wife hates when I spend money, so I went the cheapest route possible. I got a cardboard box and lined the tops and sides with aluminum foil to reflect the light. One problem with this is you get little reflections on the sides. And then I bend a peice of white posterboard for the actual background of the picture. This is my go-to lightbox for smaller figs because of it's size I don't need more than two lamps for lighting.

For the lamps I use two 6 dollar reflector lamps from Walmart with 100 watt reveal bulbs. To diffuse the light I have a peice of embroidery backing on each bulb. I use this cause I have it at work and because it is really good at resisting heat. I wouldn't suggest wrapping 100 watt lamps with anything. But I am a daredevil.   So I have maybe maybe 19 bucks in this? Here is a pic with lighting and without

Here are a couple pics of this setup.




and a pic from this setup


For bigger figs and special treatment pics I have been using a bigger lightbox. It is a bigger cardboard box. I lined all sides of this with white posterboard. Then cut squares out of the sides and top to use my lamps. For the sides, I use the same reflector lamps from the smaller lightbox, but on top I put a bigger reflector lamp and use the same 100 watt bulb. When I am not using the areas I cut out for the pights, I line them with a peice of white posterboard. You don't want any of your light to "escape"

Here is a pic of this setup


and a pic from this setup.


And for the last setup, this is what I use for my black background pics. It's simply a peice of black posterboard bending to elminate the horizon line. And then for lighting, I use the same two 100 watt reveal lightbulbs.

Here are a couple pics of this setup. One from head on and from the side.




and a pic from this setup


As for a camera, I use a cheap old Kodak EasyShare C653. I know it isn't much, but for what I want it for, it does the job. I can change the brightness and darkness in the camera so I have to do little editting later. Also with this particular camera, I change the light/white ballance setting to light bulb/tungsten. Also you will not want to use a flash when using a lightbox. And also, I don't let the camera auto focus. I always manually focus by depressing the button halfway, then when I am happy with where it is focused, I push it the rest of the way. I have troubles with it capturing red hues on this particular camera from time to time, but I don't mind.

And part of the whole process, is trial and error. And always use a tripod of something to place your camera on where you know it wont's move. If your camera moves when you click, you well get a blurry pic every time. Your gonna take a million bad pictures before you get 100 good ones. I take anywhere between 50 to a hundred pics sometimes before I find a real gem. Don't be discouraged. I am nowhere as good as a bunch of these dudes, but if you are in a bind and have no idea, message me. I'll try to help.

To close it out, take constructive critisizm with respect and listen to it. I have a thread I started in December, and I have grown leaps and bounds since then. I hate probably the first 60 percent of the pics in my collection/photgraphy thread. It's because I still didn't know what I was doing. I'm thankful for tips I've gotten from quite a few members on here. And in a couple months, I'll probably hate the pics I'm taking now. I am always striving for better pics.   I hope this helps, these are the things that have helped me.

 

Dude, that is some brilliant stuff right there! I am so going to give this a try. Thank you to everyone who has posted comments and advice. MUCH appraciated.

 

First off, congrats on finding an inexpensive setup that totally works.

Second off, this may be one of the most overlooked and most vital things to note when it comes to toy photography/macro photography of any kind. If your camera makes it really difficult to manually focus, you probably won't be able to get truly crystal clear shots. I started with an Olympus point and shoot that had electronic manual focus with no fine-grain control. Hated it. I could never get sharp focus. Switched to a DSLR (Canon Rebel XTi) and the biggest difference aside from complete control in full manual was being able to get really sharp focus right up front via manual control. And believe me, you don't need to go all the way to a DSLR to get good manual focus control. There are some amazing inexpensive point and shoots out there today with truly great focus control. If you're looking for a bargain camera, go shopping and play with the focus controls. I wish I would have done that when I bought my point and shoot.

Oh, and if you're going camera shopping remember one more thing: megapixels mean squat. If you're shrinking things down for web viewing, anything over a couple megapixels is already overkill. Of course, more can help make things seem sharper, but better glass and focus control is far more important. You really can't buy a camera these days with so few megapixels as to make web pics difficult to scale.

 

Pic heavy!

G - sorry to be late!

Well yeah I've nothing to add to what's been covered already. Actually I know nothing technical  

The reason I started with the whole lightbox thing is to be able to focus on the toys. It is so much more easier that way than having various other objects in the background. I had a cardboard box with tracing paper windows for a while, then a friend of mine who's very handy with tools made this for me;

It's made of some scrap wood, and the lights are the old kitchen lights with covers. I have it on top of a chest of drawers so that I don't have to bend my back. As you see it's tall but not wide, since I had TakTom 1/8 Votoms toys in mind (they are about 12 inch tall)


My camera is a Canon point & shoot, as NF said a simple digicam is enough unless you plan to make a large printout of your pictures.

As for the infinite look with reflective base, I just have a small glass pane taken from a cheap photo frame. If the picture is dark the edge is visible;


To have the picture really bright, I use exposure compensation when I take photos, and very often I turn up the brightness and/or white balance with an image editing software. The edge of the glass disappears at this stage if it is present.

If the backdrop is black, I'm not very good at all. (I use a piece of black satin cloth)



I tweak with white/black balance and sometimes come up with the images I am happy with  


Shiny foil papers are also fun!


I don't use tripod, I use auto focus as well as manual. My basic style is 'aim and shoot then hope for the best'. I just take lots of photos, and pick a few I am happy with.

Some of you know that I am very fussy over the site gallery, but in general how the Cool Stuff thread is the way I love, people take pics of the toys they like and have fun   It shouldn't be tedious.

 

Syd and others looking to do dark/black backgrounds, try to keep the turned up part of the black in shadow. True black backgrounds are usually shadowed heavily. No light = true black. In fact, having a knock-out back on your light box and keeping external lights off may be the best way to get a true black background.

I was handed this tip on a photography site. No matter how good your background material is, no matter how black, it will show up some level of grey unless it's in complete darkness.



I screwed up and let a tiny little bit of light hit the wall here, but that entire wall behind him is a very bright blue-green in reality. Looks pretty black in the upper right corner even with a twenty-five second exposure. No light makes anything look black.

 

I've never aimed at a true black, because I thought it would be impossible to do yet still get enough light on the object I am photographing. But, that makes alot of sense to me. I'm not sure how to go about it with my current set-up. It may be time to go back to the drawing board and create a new lightbox. Maybe hang a peice of carboard or something straight up and down just above the object I am photographing to block out as much light as possible from getting to the back of the posterboard, yet keep that "light blocking piece" out of the pic.

 

I haven't used it yet, but it seems like Shmax's photo guidelines is great for a Noob: Shmax.com: Photo Guidelines

 

That is one of the basic tricks. Slap a board of some type, cardboard, plastic, wood, whatever as long as it blocks light, to the back side of the light and keep it just outside of frame. Anybody looking for the "official" version of this, it's called a barn door on the photo sites. They hook right onto the lamps and can be used to hold light away from certain objects in various directions, depending on how they are mounted.

But honestly, anything that can be propped up to block light hitting the background works. Oh, and make sure it won't catch on fire or melt from the heat of the lamps.

 

This is always something I am worried about when people see my setup. I have a material that diffuses my light directly on my lamps. It is heat resistant to a pretty high temp. I hope that people don't look at my setup and think it's tissue paper and do that with tissue paper.

 

I really need to work with on the manual settings on my camera. I was playing the other night and my Depth of Field was so sliver small. Got any tips on expanding that? I'm using a 70-300mm F4.0-5.6 zoom lens from across the room.

I totally agree on the remote trigger. I've got a remote for my camera (Canon XTi too  ) and even on a tripod it helps reduce the shake so much. Plus 2 seconds is a lot shorter than 10 seconds with a timed shot. One thing to note for others that may be reading is if you have an Image Stabilizing lens to make sure that IS is turned off when the camera is on a tripod. That alone will cause as much shake than trying to hand shoot.

I have the exact same light setup. 2 $6 fixtures from Lowe's and 100w Full Spectrum Reveal bulbs. Mine sit to the sides of my box on re-purposed speaker stands.  

Syd, very interesting about the difference between the white background and dark. I didn't consider that. I've got a sheet of glass I think I'll give a try with my white background and see what's up. My glass is tinted a bit green at the edges though so that may cause an issue.  

And Totally agreed on the Have Fun part.  
-G